Baking: With a little sugar -- and spice

Strider has decided that he wants to do a bake sale again. This Saturday our neighborhood is having their twice-a-year Yard Sale day, and Strider has loved selling baked goods in the past, so he's up for it again.

So we headed into the kitchen to make the necessary items. We first had to have quite a conference to determine what and how much to make. After selecting a Strawberry Muffin recipe, I suggested we make a triple batch. Strider quickly did the calculations to figure out his maximum revenues, and decided that after his "costs" (he's paying me a percentage for the ingredients), this was not going to be good enough to meet his financial goals. After a brief discussion about his first inclination to "raise the price" (good time for a quick Economics lesson about Pricing and Demand... Pete will be sad he missed it), he decided that he needed to make more muffins. So a quadruple batch it was.

We dove right in.... Rayna almost literally:

..and were doing quite well for awhile. Then there was some protests when I said I alone would be cracking the eggs. And wouldn't you know, just as I'm saying the words, "You can't do it because you might drop an eggshell into the batter..." I actually did just that! Good grief. So now I had to stop and try to fish it out from the bottom of the bowl where I could no longer see it...

Strider was undeterred though, in the face of my dismay. He just said, "That's ok. We'll just make it a contest -- Whoever gets the muffin with the eggshell in it wins $10!" I liked the entrepreneurial spirit.... but still continued to hunt down the wayward shell piece. And nobody worry -- I did end up finding it and fishing it out.

Then the little Cole-man woke up from his nap and wanted to participate. He spent a lot of time begging for the "stry" -- which everyone knows is "strawberries" in baby language...

I tried to appease him with a few, but he was insatiable.


And THEN...

I dropped the baking soda can.... and then when Strider went to pick it up, he dumped out even more by mistake.

Time to clean up... and of course everyone wants in on that too....

Finally we were back to the task at hand...

..... And 4 hours after we started, the muffins were finally done. (ok, slight exaggeration. Felt like that long though)